Video Vixen
by Uphill Both Ways
Summary: Some accidental cross-dressing and an inconveniently placed film studio leave Izaya in unfamiliar territory, especially when Hanejima Yuuhei happens to be in town. KasuIza.


The sky was clear; a brilliant azure blue, not a single tuft of cloud to obstruct the peace, and the same calm serenity could associate with the ground beneath it in a thriving Ikebukuro. Everything was running smoothly—"_IZAYAAAAA_!"

Until Shizuo Heiwajima caught sight of Izaya Orihara.

Panic spread through the pedestrians as another infamous chase unfolded, and the flash of a fur trimmed coat left three seconds of warning in its wake before destruction turned the same corner.

Izaya grinned maliciously, despite the gnawing cramp beginning to make itself known in his stomach. Shizuo hadn't seemed to care that the other had been enjoying fatty tuna, and chased the informant right out of the park in the middle of his meal—and Izaya's stomach wasn't thanking him for it. Mind racing, Izaya calculated the odds of losing Shizuo by zigzagging through some alleys and thick crowds in quick succession. It didn't seem likely.

Muscles screaming in protest, Izaya hiked over an obstructing wall, giving a few more seconds of thought before Shizuo broke through it. Izaya quickly scanned the surrounding area—a forlorn apartment building, a convenience store, and a promising business center were the closest enclosures. On spirited intuition, Izaya dashed into the business building just as a plume of smoke erupted from a demolished chunk of wall behind him.

A gust of sweet-scented, conditioned air brushed over Izaya upon his entrance into the anonymous building. From the entry, he noticed that he'd chanced upon the filming studio of a local production company that he knew exploited their association with Hanejima Yuuhei. The area was bustling with professional-looking, hard faced men and women, half-dressed actors and actresses obviously preparing for some shoot, and focused but thrilled designers and prop organizers, none of which lacked a communicative head-set.

Izaya didn't let the glamour distract him for more than a minute, dashing into one of the costume closets moments before Shizuo came crashing into the front entrance. The flow of human traffic never acknowledged the slight disturbance, wound around their own worlds. Thinking quickly, Izaya ripped a rather flashy looking outfit off its hanger, ignoring the label on it, trying to shrug out of his clothes and replace them with the much more feminine fabrics before Shizuo found him.

He'd only just managed to straighten out the wig, realizing only too late that he'd pulled out an actress's costume, before Shizuo came smashing through the closet door. Izaya spun on his heel (which proved difficult to do actually _in_ heels), letting shock encase his expression, before Shizuo flushed and sputtered out a rather pathetic apology that the brunette tried desperately not to laugh at. Stomping out of the closet in what he'd call an arrogant manner; Izaya rested a firm _slap_ across Shizuo's face, snapping something about a woman's privacy and smoothing down the gaudy dress as he stalked away from the blond, disappearing into the bustle of people.

From the distant vantage point of a doorway leading to multiple sets, Izaya watched proudly as Shizuo shuffled towards the exit of the building, shoulders slumped in a show of angry defeat. Before Shizuo was quite able to exit, a familiar form dissipated from the crowd, stopping him with a hand to his shoulder. Izaya frowned at the two brothers while they were briefly reacquainted. One Heiwajima was more than enough for him. Once Kasuka had waved a farewell to his elder and made his way back to the filming area, Shizuo departed and Izaya made his move to change out of his ridiculous guise as to leave the building as well—

But suddenly a hand clamped down on his shoulder, and before Izaya could react at all, a gruff voice drifted up from behind him.

"There you are, we've been looking everywhere for you, didn't know if you'd got the memo about the filming schedule getting' changed," A dry chuckle interrupted here, "woulda been bad if our lead actress was a no-show. Good thing you're already dressed for the scene…I'll just take you to make-up then." At this, the man began pulling Izaya through a maze of people and doorways, leaving him no room for an argument. How would he explain stealing the actress's guise anyway?

"Might wanna go over this scene real quick before the cameras go up, it's the big finale after all."

"Er, yeah, sure," Izaya struggled to find a good excuse for the female voice, unsure if this man would really pay mind to a voice change. Well if he or any of the dozen or so make-up artists Izaya suffered through noticed, they didn't show it. As Izaya attempted to cough the foundation powder out of his lungs, seated in a backstage sort of room open to the hallways, something thudded into his lap, and he peered at the cover of what looked to be the script of whatever he'd been tangled in.

"Hiro said you wanted to review. Be quick, fifteen minutes." Izaya's head snapped up at the familiar drawl of the more stoic of the Heiwajima brothers. Dipping his head in such a way that a curtain of hair from his wig covered his face, Izaya nodded and opened the script to a random page, pretending to know what he was doing. He didn't see the curious expression Kasuka made, before the actor reached over himself and flipped the booklet open to the right page for their scene. Pointing to what seemed to be the only feminine name on the page, Izaya assumed that meant she was the character he was playing.

"Aha, thanks Yuuhei-kun!" Izaya sing-songed, taking a shot in the dark for an inconspicuous nickname. Kasuka just nodded and walked away, and Izaya breathed a sigh of relief. He was getting in over his head. His eyes flicked side to side, and when the coast seemed clear, he made to escape from the mess—until Kasuka managed to materialize in front of him again.

"Five minutes. Let's go, Ms. Arahiro."

_Ah, Ms. Arahiro, so that's who they think I am…what the hell, might as well see where this goes, _Izaya decided following Kasuka's retreating back. He abandoned his plan of escape, since the real Arahiro was a no show, Izaya relished the opportunity to put himself in her shoes (quite literally). Izaya skimmed through the open script still in his hands, thankful for his photographic mind and quick memorization ability. He was still absorbing the words, flicking his eyes up from the pages every so often so that he didn't loose sight of Kasuka, when blinding lights in front of one of many sets caught his attention.

As Kasuka veered in that general direction, Izaya supposed that it was their set. The overbearing shades of red and pink made the informant grimace, he'd gathered from what he'd read that he'd be enacting a romance scene with Kasuka. Some sort of clichéd ending of a season where the untouchable hero and seductress heroine were part of a stakeout in a love hotel, realizing along the way that they love each other. The fans that swore this would happen all along go wild, the ratings fluctuate, the next season is happily declared or declined, and the online fanbase would explode with fanworks—big whoop. Izaya had never been very intrigued by action romance or the spotlight.

As he and Kasuka neared the set, Izaya caught a glowing 'Exit' sign in his peripheral—it was now or never—and when a heavy hand clasped his arm, cheerfully wishing him a good performance, Izaya assumed fate had chosen never. Izaya mumbled briefly to himself, while people shoved props and himself none-too-gently around the set into correct positions, trying to ascertain a feminine pitch to his voice.

"Make us proud, Ms. Arahiro, Mr. Yuuhei." The confident baritone of their director encourage from his seat behind the row of cameras and lights.

Izaya grinned to himself. He'd make a better Arahiro than Arahiro herself. Of course it would've been easier if he'd been able to observe her beforehand—but then again if he knew it'd come to this, he'd probably manipulate himself out of the situation—though it didn't seem as though any of the directors or fellow actors/actresses paid much attention to his mannerisms. Figured.

Izaya barely registered the signals sent to him before the countdown to start the scene began. Quickly composing himself, Izaya shot Kasuka a reassuring (girly) smile, to which the actor simply nodded before the lights somehow became more blinding and everything in the suffocating area hushed.

Recalling the cheesy lines in the script almost made Izaya giggle in the middle of his lines, as he worked to smooth out each word with a convincing falsetto. He and Kasuka bounced lines off of each other with artificial ease and character, obviously pleasing bystanders. Izaya worked Arahiro's flirtatious character _immaculately_, or so he thought, used to similar teasing around his clients. He was pleased with the way he was able to recall the script, so wrapped up in his own little world that the touch to his hip nearly made him jolt, Kasuka's sudden proximity unexpected. Remembering that it _was_, after all, a _romance_ scene, Izaya passed it off as good acting. But after a few more lines and a lot more light touches, most likely hidden from the cameras anyway, Izaya began to question Kasuka's motive.

Even so, the informant had been genuinely having fun in his female role, taking full advantage of the ability to prance about without being criticized and flirt around with Shizuo's brother—until he got six minutes in.

After that point, he mainly focused on not tripping in the obnoxiously painful heels, or having his dress ride up embarrassingly high on his thighs, or tear the stockings, or have his painfully itchy wig fall off, or smear the pore-blocking make-up—and on _top_ of that, he still had to throw himself all over Kasuka, rolling off suggestive wordplay without showing effort—Izaya decided that being a girl was not worth it.

He prayed for the end of the scene soon—begging whatever was out there to end the torture, promising that he'd never try drag again, _even if it meant being pummeled by Shizu-chan_— why on earth did they have a bed and comfy sofas in the scene if Izaya never got to use them? As the scene droned on—shouldn't they have gotten a break?—the informant became increasingly impressed with his own acting ability. If he was still able to pull off a seductive woman while inwardly screaming in pain without anyone seeming to notice, he must've been pretty damn good—or it really just didn't matter.

Izaya's energy returned tenfold when he recognized on of Kasuka's lines to be one of the last. With newfound vigor, Izaya frolicked dramatically over to Kasuka, despite the practically non-existent space between them, and very nearly shouted his finishing lines—

"Oh, _Akusak-kun_, I just can't contain it any longer!" _Damn straight_, Izaya thought as a fresh new wave of pain encased his feet when he forcefully wrapped his arms around Kasuka, "I love you so, so much—and I have since the day I first saw you!"

Izaya inwardly gagged over the words leaving his own mouth, while Kasuka's arms wound around his body—and _where_ were his hands going? The informant pretended not to notice the hand _groping his ass,_ trying not to flush from the other hand caressing his lower back in a _much_ more intimate manner that what Izaya thought was necessary, not-so-subtly reminding him of earlier contact.

Kasuka professed his love to Arahiro's character, though Izaya could've sworn he'd heard a teasing edge to his voice, and just as he went to pull away and rejoice at the end of the torture, a sudden, gentle tug to his chin turned his startled gaze to Kasuka. The directors didn't yell cut as Izaya'd expected them to, and before the informant could question the actor holding him, Kasuka's lips covered his own.

Neither forceful nor feeble, the soft contact sent Izaya's eyes flying wide open while he stared in confusion at Kasuka, whose eyes were closed and whose hands caressed Izaya's body lightly. Finally, Kasuka pulled away, opening his eyes to the world again, and before he turned back to the directors Izaya saw a flash of _something_ in the obscure depths. The actor released himself from Izaya's grasp, who fought down a rising blush at everything that had just happened and his lack of ability to stop it—that _kiss_, that unexpected kiss—it _had_ to have been unscripted! Izaya wouldn't have overseen a key detail like _that_ in the script—sure they were supposed to get lovey-dovey and initiate _some_ romance, but not like that!

Izaya sputtered at Kasuka, while the director yelled cut and congratulated the people around him on a job well done,

"Wha-what the hell was that? There was no kiss in the script! I feel violated!" Izaya complained, feeling left out of some big secret since everyone around acted as if it wasn't important. Kasuka merely shrugged, increasing the venom in Izaya's glower.

"You know, the key to acting is to know when to or not to improvise—when it feels _right_—and at the moment it just seemed right to kiss you. No big deal." The man's regular drawl seemed to have more of an emotional edge to it at the moment, dedication to acting or something deeper Izaya didn't know. But before his speech returned to him, Kasuka had been snatched away by the director, praised for his gold improvisation, while Izaya tried to clear his mind. As the informant turned to exit and escape from the groping, proud hands of 'colleagues', Kasuka's voice spoke to him again out of the earshot of the others—

"Oh, and Izaya, next time you want to impersonate Ms. Arahiro, you should think about colored contacts."

Izaya jolted, freezing in his tracks for a minute to wonder _when_ exactly Kasuka might've figured his cover, and how long he'd simply been stringing Izaya along for his own amusement—but brushed his worry off smoothly with a mischievous smirk, on his way to the closet he'd left his clothes in.

All the torture he went through that afternoon would be made better by Shizuo's expression when Izaya told him just _who_ he'd gotten a kiss from.

* * *

**A/N: For the ever lovely MissUzumakiJessica, who didn't murder me for taking forever C:**


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